PORTLAND — Gray-New Gloucester had plenty of reasons to feel anxiety or doubt Wednesday at the Portland Expo.

A fourth-quarter scoring drought. Its best defender fouling out. Spurts of hot shooting by Freeport. Momentum that swung back and forth.

But even combined, those things hardly made the top-seeded Patriots sweat, and they held on to defeat the fourth-seeded Falcons 62-56 in a Class A South boys basketball semifinal.

“Our team never gets worried,” junior John Patenaude said. “When we’re down, when we’re tied, no matter what, we just stick together, and we’re so good — I mean, it’s hard to explain. We just stayed calm, did our thing.”

Gray-New Gloucester (18-2) has a chance to avenge its only loss of 2024 in the regional final against No. 3 Noble (16-4) at the Expo on Friday at 8:45 p.m.

“We feel great,” Patriots coach Ian McCarthy said. “I mean, obviously, there’s some stuff that we can clean up, but, you know, these guys have worked so hard. We’ve talked about his tournament all year long. We try to keep focused on one game at a time, but at the end of the day, it’s so much fun to play here and play with these guys. So we’re going to celebrate tonight, but back to the grind tomorrow.”

Freeport (14-6) made 11 shots from 3-point range, but since they hardly missed, it seemed like more.

“There was a few times when we could have put them away, and we just didn’t, and then they came down and made big shot after big shot,” McCarthy said. “I’d love to see what their percentage was, but I know it’s got to be high.”

The Falcons’ standout big man J.T. Pound made four of those 3-pointers, but he was limited to a pair of two-point field goals.

“That’s all Mr. Aidan Hebert, right there,” Gray-NG senior captain Carter Libby said. “He just is a beast. He really just locked him up. It’s not something you can teach … just an aggressive player, really good defender. It’s just awesome to have somebody just pick someone out and make sure to minimize their impact on the game.”

So it was a big deal when Hebert fouled out with 2:15 left in the game. Especially since at that point the Patriots were in the midst of a four-minute-plus scoring drought.

Libby admitted that his mind started to go to Gray-NG’s 82-78 loss to Noble on Feb. 5, but other than that, the Patriots remained composed.

“I wasn’t super worried, to be honest,” Libby said. “Going back to Noble, I think we had two or three people foul out there at the end. That was honestly a little bit in the back of my mind, but just with the crowd and everything, and the way that we had been playing, I think I knew that we would get it done.”

Despite hardly having Hebert’s defense during their scoring drought, the Patriots stayed ahead of Freeport, though their lead was down to 55-53 with less than a minute to play.

Patenaude finally ended the scoreless stretch with 31 seconds remaining.

After an inbound pass following a jump ball at Freeport’s end of the court, Patenaude broke away from the defense and Nate Hebert passed to the streaking Patenaude, who finished a layup that pushed Gray-NG’s lead to four points, 57-53.

“He saw me cutting, and perfect pass, set me right up for the layup,” Patenaude said. “And I think that got us going a little bit.”

The Patriots then forced a five-second call on a Freeport inbound play, and after that all they needed to do was make their free throws. Which they did — Patenaude hit 3 of 4 and Nate Hebert sank both of his attempts.

Patenaude paced the Patriots with 18 points. Nate Hebert added 12, Noah Hebert had nine and Libby finished with eight.

Six of Libby’s points came during a key stretch early in the third quarter.

Each team had momentum swing in its favor in the first half. The Patriots scored the first seven points and led 17-11 after one quarter.

The Falcons stormed back in the second period, making four 3-pointers. They led by as many as four points but Gray-NG made enough shots to stick with them, including a late trey by reserve Colby Mitchell that sent the game into halftime tied 32-32.

Both teams came out of intermission on fire. Freeport made two quick 3s, and each time the Patriots responded in kind.

The difference was that Gray-NG added a couple more treys. Libby’s second of the quarter gave the Patriots a 41-38 lead. Noah Hebert made another. A few plays later, Patenaude stole the ball at one end and took it coast to coast for a basket.

Gray-New Gloucester had scored eight consecutive points in less than a minute and built an eight-point lead, its largest of the game, 46-38, midway through the third.

“It was a huge momentum swing,” Patenaude said. “And I think it got the fans going, and when the fans are going, we’re going, too.”

“Carter, he steps up every time we need him. He’s a captain for a reason,” McCarthy said. “And I heard from a gentleman that has worked in this building for a number of years, he said it’s the loudest he’s ever heard it. So I’m proud of our guys, proud of the fans.

The Falcons had a few more hot spurts but never regained the lead.

Pound, who last month committed to play at Central Maine Community College in Auburn next winter, scored a team-high 18 points in his final high school game.

Connor Slocum finished with 17 points for Freeport, and Conner Smith made four 3s and scored 12 points.

Before fouling out, Aidan Hebert scored seven points and grabbed a team-best six rebounds for the Patriots, which will face another test Saturday against Jamier Rose and Noble.

“We’ve got to stop the down-hill penetration,” McCarthy said. “All their guards are just phenomenal. Jamier, he sees all the openings, and he’ll exploit you if we don’t keep him in our sights. That being said, we can’t change the way we play. We got to get up and down. So it should be a fun game to watch.”

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